Revolution no. 3

Treat it like you make it.

FIGHTING PAPER FOR WORKING CLASS YOUTH®e ISSUE 3 ¢ 20 PENCE INSIDE: CHUMBAWAMBA INTERVIEW ¢ HOW TO FIGHT THE CJBe WHY WE SUPPORT THE PALESTINIANS ¢ LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS - 25 YEARS AFTER STONEWALL ¢ WHOSE DEMOCRACY?

n 21 June, stuck up Tory peers

like the Duke of Norfolk and

the Bishop of Chester tried to raise the age of consent for gay men back up to twenty-one! This came just two days after over 100,000 gay people and their supporters marched on the massive Lesbian and Gay Pride demonstration in London. The march took place on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York, the start of the modern fight for lesbian and gay liberation.

What happened at Stonewall? On the night of 27 June 1969, New York police raided the Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village for the second time in a week. But that night was different. The lesbians and gay men who drank there refused to put up with another night of harassment and abuse. The police trapped them inside the bar, and let them out one by one. A crowd gathered outside which was, at first, good humoured. But when the police started to violently drag away people they had arrested inside the bar, the mood changed. The crowd fought back. Under a torrent of bottles and coins the police were forced to retreat back into the bar as the crowd fought to release their friends. Then the crowd decided to teach the cops a lesson. Eventually they torched the bar with the coppers still inside. Rioting continued for the test of the weekend.

25 years on, lesbians and gay men have shown that they can fight back again and again. But equality and freedom have still not been won. In Britain, although the age of consent has been lowered, it is still not equal with heterosexuals. Gay people continue to be queerbashed, discriminated against by their employers and denied custody of their children. The police still to mount surveillance operations on places where men meet for sex, and still prosecute them under the “gross indecency” laws just for having sex.

Although there are gay people from all walks offlife, the struggle for lesbian and gay liberation is a class issue. The growth of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s inspired thousands of lesbians and gay men to be open about their sexuality. The 1970s and 80s saw a massive expansion of commercial gay venues. But the commercial gay scene is still predominantly found in

by Gavin, North London

large cities and is too expensive for most young working class gay people to visit regularly. You need only walk around Manchester's ‘gay village’ or Old Compton Street in London to see that the scene still excludes many more people than it involves. Thousands of working class gay people still live in fear of their friends and family finding out that they are gay.

As the crowds left the Pride Festival in Brockwell Park a gang of youths taunted a group of gay men, attacking them with baseball bats. Self-defence groups should be built to teach the bigots and the queerbashers a lesson in

l Tony (Yes- but | didn’t inhale} South London

HOCK HORROR! Revolution

agrees with a top copper. Last

month the head of Interpol (the international police organisation) called for the legalisation of drugs. We don’t know what he is on but we think the same.

Take cannabis, for example. Nearly everyone else does. There are millions of people who have a smoke without turning into mass murderers, but its still illegal. Police chiefs, judges, teachers and civil servants are waking up to what everyone else has been telling them for years. Its pointless keeping the weed illegal. It doesn’t do any harm and everyone smokes it anyway.

But the Tories and their smarmy Home Secretary Michael Howard aren’t listening. They are bringing in tougher sentences for possession. Never mind that draw is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. Never mind that nobody has ever been killed by smoking a few spliffs.

When it comes to stopping people enjoying themselves, logic just doesn’t come into it. The ban on drugs is justa

e spirit of Stonewall

a language they will understand - the language of the Stonewall riots, the language of courage and resistance. And we need to build a movement that can overcome bigotry and prejudice, by winning the masses of the working class to take action against all forms of discrimination. The workers are the only force in society that have the power to carry through real change.

We need to fight to unite gay and straight workers to oppose all state interference in our private lives and to fight for a socialist society where everyone can freely decide who they want to have sex with.© -

good excuse for harassment on the streets and at festivals.

Weare forthe legalisation ofall drugs. That way the sale of all drugs can be taken out of the hands of gangs and gangsters. That way they will be cheaper and safer. They should be under popular control, so that the big companies don’t just make a fortune out of selling weed at everyone else’s expense.

Drugs like smack do really fuck people up. But banning it hasn’t done any good - quite the opposite. If it was cheaply available without having to score off dodgy dealers and rob to pay for a habit, fewer people would die from dirty gear and shared needles every year.

Revolution is about fighting to change the world, not about just getting out of your head at every opportunity. We want to think straight and be active (most of the time anyway!) But bans on drugs have got nothing to do with that. They are just a way of Tory ministers and police hassling youth and telling us what we can and can’t do. That's why we say legalise it! *

If you want the right to organise,

the right to silence and the right to party, get active! The Criminal Justice Bill will be law soon. But we can

stop it.

Hude Park lpm HILL THE BILL!

If you want the right to silence - speak out now!

The Bill says that if you use your right to silence and refuse to answer police questions when under arrest, this alone can be evidence that you are guilty! The police will use this to terrify and trick people into giving confessions. The Guildford Four and Birmingham Six were banged away for years on false confessions. How many more people will be pressured into talking once the basic right to stay silent is removed).

Making the homeless criminals

The bill will make it a criminal offence not to leave a property within 24 hours ofa court order. Homeless people will find it even more difficult to use the hundreds of thousands of properties that are standing empty and will be

thrown back onto the streets almost overnight.

But it won't just be used against squatters. Anyone who is behind in their rent may find their landlord has got an order. The Bill does not even allow tenants to go to court and defend themselves if the landlord is trying to get them evicted.

This land is our land?

It is no accident that the Landowners Association have backed the bill. The Bill has clauses which means the police can order people off land. If they refuse or protest the police can arrest them. Workers and students should also beware. The Bill will make it a criminal offence to occupy a workplace or college buildings. Many workers have used occupation to stop the closure of workplaces,

hospitals or other facilities like nurseries. Now they will be banged away for it.

This law also be used against travellers Magistrates and the police'will be able to remove vehicles and impound them. The Bill will abolish the 1968 Caravan Sites Act which meant that local authorities had to provide sites for travellers. So now they will be constantly harassed wherever they go.

We want the right to party!

The Bill will bring in a whole series of laws against raves and free festivals. It will allow the police to take any equipment, stop people from getting to the event and throw them in jail. The Bill even brings in laws against “the emission of a succession of rapid beats” - which is not just techno and hardcore, but could mean any dance music at all!

Roadblock ahead

Clauses 65 and 66 of the Bill allow the police to ban “assemblies” - marches and demos -and stop those people who they think are on their way to them. The police used roadblocks during the miners strike even when the law did not say they could. They will now have the legal justification for setting up roadblocks whenever they want.

The police will get the power to use laws here that they have already used against the people of Northern Ireland. A police commander will be able to start a ‘stop and search’ operation in an area for up to 28 days.

In addition they will also have the right to stop and search anyone they choose for 24 hours without having to give any reason. This will be just like the old ‘sus’ law which the police used to criminalise black youth in the 1970s.

We can still stop the Bill from becoming law. The campaign is picking up new strength every day. The demonstration on 24 July should be massive. Everywhere protests, pickets, and demonstrations should be organised. The Bill is not just an attack on youth and travellers - it affects the whole working class. We need to draw the unions into the campaign and get protest strikes to build up the maximum pressure. The youth united with the organised workers will be an unstoppable force.

We have no time to lose - let's Kill the Bill!

democracy?

By Chris, Birmingham

e are told we live in a democracy. The word means “rule of the people”. But

how democratic is Britain really? And do the people really hold the power?

Itis true that we have a parliament. Itis elected by everyone over the age of 18 at least every five years. We can choose who to vote for.

But once itis elected there is no means of controlling MP’s, parliament or the government until the next election. Ifthe government breaks its promises, which it always does, we cannot get rid of it, (according to the law that is), until the next election.

On a day to day basis we see how democratic our society really is. When a factory owner decides to close down a factory, the workers in that factory don’t get a vote on whether it should stay open.There is no debate about it - the factory is his to do withas he pleases. The homeless never get a ballot on whether they can occupy empty housing or change decisions to build homes instead ofluxury

office blocks. Black people and youth cannot decide to remove racist police who harass and attack them from their area.

Revolutionaries believe that even under the parliamentary system, real power lies outside parliament. Unelected civil servants, the owners of the press and television, judges, police chiefs, and army officers decide what is going to happen in society. The monarchy and the House of Lords, who are not elected by anyone, have the power to delay and block laws. The Queen still has the power to dismiss a government. She used it as recently as 1975, when she sacked an elected Labour government in Australia!

Real power also lies with those who own and control the wealth of society: the top bankers, financiers and big businessmen who make up the capitalist class. It is they who decide how the resources of this country are dished out. As most wealth and property is in their hands they want to keep it that way.

The real apparatus of decision making and law enforcement - the state - is completely outside any democratic control. It is answerable only to the rich capitalists. It exists to protect the whole system of private property from the rest of us.

So when the media say we live under the “rule of the people”, we reply: which people? Certainly not the majority of us. We live under the rule of part of the people - the rich part. We live in a capitalist democracy.

Of course this does not mean that we have no democratic rights at all. We have the right to hold meetings and to print newspapers to get our point of view across. We can hold demonstrations to protest against things we do not agree with. Workers have the right to join a trade union. But these rights were not just granted to us from above out of the goodness of our rulers’ hearts, Every one of them, including the right to vote, had to be fought for from below.

Today the government is trying to restrict our rights. That is what the Criminal Justice Bill is about. Over the last years the Tories have brought in a series of laws which limit the ability of trade unions to strike in defence of their jobs and conditions. They have given the police more powers to attack demonstrators and break up picket lines. They have brought in powers to censor what we can

say, forexample banning Sinn Fein speakers from the airwaves.

While we fight for the broadest possible democratic rights, we do not believe that real and lasting change can come through parliament. A government that tried to take wealth and property out of the hands of the rich would soon meet with opposition from within the state itself. That is what happened in Chile in 1973. The people elected a government that said it would really change things for the better. The workers demanded that the government take over the wealth and property of the rich and put it in the hands of the people. The army overthrew the government, brought in a military dictatorship and murdered thousands and thousands of their opponents.

Many people might think that this could only happen in South America and that the British army and police would never disobey the rule of democratic law. But they would be wrong. All of the unelected top civil servants, judges, police chiefs and army officers in Britain come from the same class. They and their families have enormous personal wealth. They go to the same private schools together and then on to top Oxford or Cambridge colleges. They have the same outlook on life - that they have the right to own most of the wealth. They are determined to keep it and if that means getting rid of elected governments then so be it.

That is why throughout history the most determined sections of the working class have rejected the idea that the system can be peacefully reformed and have fought for revolution. To transform society the working class will have to break the power of the unelected state, dissolve the army and police and bring in its own government with its own military force based on the armed population.

This idea is not pie in the sky. We know itcan be done because the working class of Russia did it in 1917. They broke up the old state and formed their own government led by the Bolshevik (Communist) Party. This government tookover the factories and put them under the control of the workers. They gave the land to the peasants.

We are usually told in school that the Bolshevik government was a totalitarian dictatorship right from the start. But in its early years it was the most democratic

system ever seen. The government was based on the power of soviets. Soviets were councils of workers.in every town and city, made up of delegates elected directly from all the different factories and areas.

The delegates to these soviets were accountable and recallable. They had to report backtomass meetings of the workers who had elected them. If the workers thought their delegate had done something wrong or was arguing the wrong policy they didn’t have to wait five years - they could change them on the spot. All decisions could be discussed out in front

To transform society the Working class will have to break the power of the unelected state, dissolve Che army and police and bring in itS own oovernment with its own military force based on the armed population.

of the workers. This was entirely different from capitalist democracy: it was workers’ democracy.

Later, when the revolution was isolated and in retreat, alayer of bureaucrats arose under Stalin, who abolished the tule of the soviets altogether. But while it lasted the democracy of the soviets gave the majority of working people more real power and control over society than has ever been seen, before or since.

Allstates and all governments are ways in which one class rules over another. They are bodies ofarmed people defending the property of a particular class. Under capitalism the real state is in the hands of a tiny minority. In Britain we have some important democratic rights, but at the end of the day the state is still a dictatorship of the rich minority over the vast majority of the population. A state based on workers’ councils would be the opposite. It would be democratic for the majority, but it would also be a dictator-

ship of that majority over the tiny minority of capitalists. It would deny them their most cherished rights - the right to own all the wealth, the right not to have to do a proper day’s work, the right to have every luxury at their disposal and to treat the rest of us like dirt.

The old owners of the land, banks and factories will try to get “their” property back again. History shows that a revolutionary government will have to use force to stop them. In Russia after the revolution, the old landowners and capitalists formed White Armies to fight the soviet government. Wherever they went they arrested and shot the delegates elected by the workers and abolished the soviets, handing the land and factories back to their former owners. In response the soviet government refused to backdown. It formed the Red Army which took on and defeated the Whites.

The rise of the Stalinist dictatorship in Russia showed that no revolution can succeed if it is isolated in one country alone. Buta revolution that spread across the world could gradually break the resistance of the capitalists. Democratic planning and redistribution of wealth could gradually overcome the very division of society into haves and have-nots. Because every state exists to defend the interests of one class against another, as classes disappear altogether there will be less and less need for any special state machine.

Once the capitalists disappear asa class, all the functions ofa workers’ state could be taken over by society as a whole. The state would wither away. Government and authority - even of the most democratic sort - could be replaced with the simple administration of society by the people.

In this way, Marxists have the same aim as the anarchists - a society without classes and without a state. But we reject the idea that the state can just be wished away or abolished overnight. To create the conditions for aclassless society, capitalism must first be abolished. For that we will need a state power of our own. Without a workers’ state to keep them down, the capitalists could easily re-assert control and re-establish themselves as the ruling class.

And if that were to happen, then the “tule of people” will remain what it is today - a fraud rather than a reality.

ss and Z } Manchester Anti-Fascist Youth interviewed Boff from Chumbawamba about the band, politics and anarchy. Next month REVOLUTION wi// have an article on what we think about anarchism. Meanwhile we want to hear your views on anarchy, authority and the sort of world we want

Chumbawamba - 14 years down the road and the Leeds agitpop group are finally emerging into the mainstream with their latest album Anarchy. Their concerts are an unmatched combination of dance beats, cabaret and political messages. Often labelled simply as a political band, we spoke to Boff, the guitarist, after their gig at the Manchester Academy.

We asked Boff about anarchy and told him how some people at the gig thought anarchy was really great because tt meant they could wreck the set and spoil things for everyone else.

Boff: People misunderstand the word anarchy. I think the reason why we called this album Anarchy | .. was to throw the word out Cs tothe pubilc - just so people would talkaboutit or maybe get a book about anarchy and read it.

The idea of anarchy is a cool thing, it has nothing to

CHUN SW.

to live in.

anarchists and are just mad violent psychos.

Boff: Anarchy is about not fucking up anybody else. Everyone is capable of not being a bastard. People kickheads in cos they’re fucked up and stupid, but stupid is not naturally part of people. You have to believe that or you might as well give in now and not try and change anything.

aR: i 2,

do with people thinking | . _~itmasasite oes ame

yeah lets get up on stage in

the middle of a concert and wreck it, and it has nothing to do with oppressing people. Basically anarchy rejects authority. Authority is a really bad way of running communities, countries and the world.

Won't anarchy lead to chaos, an incohesive society with everyone doing their own thing and no-one prepared to compromise for the benefit of soctety as a whole?

Boff: Well, anarchy is about organising yourself and your communities and not letting others rule you. Only compromise yourself to the point where you are not fucking up someone else. In terms of chaos, that’s what we've got under this system. We live in a world in the twentieth century where millions die before they get to their fifteenth birthday - that’s chaos.

I've seen a lot of people who claim to be

With the degeneration of Blood and Honour (British fascist band) and the increase in popularity for yourselves, Credit to the Nation etc, doyou think this is a new era for anti-fascist music? Boff: Yeah, totally. The idea of fascist music is totally over-emphasised. I think they’re all really crap. Some fascist bands have said that they want to get onto Top of the Pops so how come they’re incapable of forming a band with good tunes? It’s funny how they're so shit. They haven't got a clue, I mean, they haven’t managed to write a well written popular book, not made any films etc. Culturally they're completely shit. They've got no idea of how to get their ideas across using these methods.

Do you ever find yourself under pressure to compromise your politics by record companies and the like?”

Boff: Yes - yeah all the time. Sometimes we do compromise. I remem-

ber when we used to play really small venues where we could talk to everyone but the Academy and other places we play now are so big that we can’t talk to everyone. That's a compromise but we think its worth it.

What did you think of the October 16 Demo in Welling and the police treatment of demonstrators? Boff: We were not there so I don’t know. Those sort of - demos wouldn't get in ; the news if there were > no trouble with the poee I’m all for causing ~ the police trouble, I Le at ee I offer no excuse. I ~~ mean on the Anti Poll ™“ Taxdemonstration/riot much of the left tried to justify the riot by saying the police caused it. I don’t think we need to - justify it I see the police as part of the racist sys-

In terms of anti-fascism do you agree with “no platform”?

Boff: Oh yes, I think its essential. It’s absolutely terrible that some anti-fascist groups go on TV debating with fascists. I think they should be strung up. British democracy already gives them too much respectablity without that.

Where can you see the band in a few years time: super stardom or...

Boff: Split up. I don’t know. I don’t think beyond six months. You get people coming up to you and saying have you thought about your pension plan - I think forget it.

.. Some deep and meaningful secrets revealed, We did not ask Boff for a final word but I’m sure it would have been similar to the words of Matty Blagg (Blagegers I*T*A*): “It’s nice to be important but its important to be nice.”

i)

SINCE 1987, PALESTINIAN youth have been waging a heroic struggle agaimst the Israeli state. Young Arabs, often armed only with rocks have fought against one of the most efficient and wellermed military machines in the world. Now the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), want the fighting to stop. They promise peace. The question is peace on whose terms? And what were the youth fighting for

in the first place?

_ Esmee wes set up affer a long campaign by the Zionist movement which

argued that Jews needed their

They

D.e.t-

a people for 2 people

without 2 lend”. This sounded con-

particularly after the “ Holocaust m which sk Hitler’s concentration camps. But Palestine was not “a land without aie a people”. The majority [Ont its population were Arabs. To build a

Jewish state there, the Zionist settlers | had to create a Jewish majority by -

persecuting and discriminating against Arabs. Far from being a way of bringing oppression and racism to an end, Zionism continued it, but with Arabs as the victims instead of Jews.

Israel was founded in 1949 after years of organised violence by armed Jewish settlers. Their campaign resulted in the 33% Jewish population occupying 78% of the territory of Palestine. 780,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed, driven from their land. These Palestinians ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. There they live in poverty and destitution.

Those Arabs that remained in Israel fared little better. Under discriminatory laws they were condemned to second class citizenship. Arabs get the worst housing, education, health care and, of course, the worst jobs. One statistic says it all: twice as many Arab babies die as Jewish ones!

The expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was backed up by the racist “Law of Return”. This law, which still exists to this day, means that anyone who can prove that they are Jewish is entitled to be an Israeli citizen as soon as they set foot in the “promised land”. But the children of the Arabs expelled in 1947-49 are not allowed to “return”,

This is not just another set of racist immigration controls, like the restric-

tions on the entry of black peopleand refugees into British. The Law of Return lies at the very root of the Israeli state. Without it there would be no “Jewish state” in Palestine. The Jewish population would eventually be outnumbered by Arabs, who would quite understandably want to restore theirrights and do away with the whole idea of the state being specifically “Jewish”. So racist discrimination is the only way the Israeli state can keep the Jewish population in the majority. That is why no reform will really free the Palestinians if the racist foundations of the Israeli state remain in place.

That is why the Palestinians, and particularly the youth, have been fighting against the Israeli state for solong. We support them. If Jews and Arabs are to live together in peace, the Israeli state and the racial discrimination it is based on must be overthrown.

So what about the peace deal that the PLO have signed with Israel? Many people have welcomed it as some sort of step forwards. But Arab youth have been demonstrating against the deal all across North Africa and the Middle East. They realise all the Israelis have granted is “autonomous zones” in Gaza and Jericho. These will cover only a small minority of the Palestinian people. They will not be independent. Israel will still make all the real decisions. The PLO have nowaccepted the right of the racist Israeli state to exist. The newly formed Palestinian police force in the “zones” will be used against any youth who do not

suoport the estinians

BY DAVE, LEICESTER

Pa

accept this.

Many of the PLO leaders are rich individuals who stand to gain influence and wealth from running the new “zones”. They have abandoned the youth who have been fighting with such bravery and for solong. Wethink the youth deserve a better leadership than this.

They need to set up a new socialist political party. The youth should demand the PLO hand over their guns to mass defence organisations of Palestinians. They should be linking up with the workers and supporting protest strikes against every act of violence and discrimination by the Israeli state. And they should be fighting for better wages and living conditions for all working class people - Arab or Jew.

That way they can point to the real way forward for all working people in the region: nota Jewish state based on racism and not powerless “zones”, but a socialist republic.6

Revolution is written and produced by youth

supporters of Workers Power (Britain)

and the League for a Revolutionary Communist Intemational.

E LIVE in a world full of injustice, oppression and poverty. While W millions starve, food is destroyed in order to keep its price up. The

latest technology in health care cannot be used in many countries because of the payment of foreign debt.

Even the most basic provisions of a good water supply and decent sanitation are denied to people all around the world. Meanwhile ever greater ecological disasters loom on the horizon.

REVOLUTION does not believe there is anything ‘natural’ about the state of the world. We believe that what is happening is because of the world wide system of capitalism.

It is a system that runs with the sole intention of making money for a tiny handful of capitalists who own and control industry and the land.

We believe that it is possible to create a new and better world system, a socialist system. It would be an international system which means the fight to achieve it must be international and is why Workers Power (Britain) is part of th Ledgiie for a Revolutionary Communist International that organises groups from Bolivia to New Zealand.

Because we are internationalists we support all struggles by people oppressed by imperialism - including the struggle to get British troops out of Ireland.

Because we are internationalists we oppose imperialist militarism: we say not a penny or a person for the defence of this system.

A socialist system would be based on common ownership and would produce and organise society to provide the necessities and luxuries of life for all according to a democratically worked out plan.

This means instead of having people homeless because the privately owned land and building companies only build houses when they can make money, we will all own the land, collectively and we will plan that to use the bricks that lie unused and the building workers who are unemployed to build the homes needed.

To get this, industry and land will have to be taken out of the hands of the few. But this group of people, the ruling class, will never allow us to do this without a fight. The government was prepared to mobilise thousands of police to attack the Unity Demo last October, just imagine what they would be prepared to do to protect their whole system of wealth and power. That is why we believe we need a workers revolution.

But we cannot wait until then, we have to fight against exploitation and oppression now. We support all workers’ struggles. We support the struggles against women’s oppression, racism and homophobia.

Whether it is workers on strike, women fighting for abortion rights or black people fighting against racism it is often young people who are leading these struggles.

We fight for action that will win and in such a way that the struggles of today can prepare us for the revolution of tomorrow. We try to turn today’s struggles into a struggle for power by fighting for workers control, workers self-defence etc.

REVOLUTION stands in the tradition of over 150 years of revolutionary socialism. Our movement is based on the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, applied to today’s conditions.

REVOLUTION aims to build a revolutionary youth movement, to win thousands and thousands of youth to supporting and building a revolutionary party that can lead the working class to power.

So don't just sit there sell REVOLUTION and become a supporter! ©

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